Who was the state’s last Democratic governor? If you think it was Ann Richards, think again. The correct answer is right there in your copy of the Texas constitution. Whenever the governor is out of state, it says in Article IV, Section 16, the lieutenant governor assumes the duties and powers of his office.

Now headlining in courtrooms in San Antonio; Brasília, Brazil; and maybe, Chihuahua, Mexico: The sad-song sagas of two chart toppers with a broad following on both sides of the Texas border. Bailiff, call the first case.

Like pulling an all-nighter with the aid of caffeine pills, protesting a speech by a controversial political figure is a time-honored tradition on college campuses. So it should have surprised no one — least of all officials of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library at the University of Texas at Austin — that Henry Kissinger’s February 1 appearance there would raise a few hackles.

IFYOUSTOOD in Matthew McConaughey’s front yard and threw a straight-to-video copy of EDtv really, really hard, you might be able hit the home of the late Texas lieutenant governor Bob Bullock; that’s how nice the neighborhood is.

RIVALGOPPRESIDENTIAL candidate John McCain may have stunned the publishing world with the success of his best-selling memoir, Faith of My Fathers, but there’s no truth to the jokey rumor that George W. Bush’s autobiography is called Faith of My Father’s Name.

One of celebrity’s immutable laws is that you’re nobody until your private life has been picked apart by the predators of the New York media. By that standard, J. Shelby Bryan is well into his Warholian fifteen minutes. The Houston native has been a tabloid staple lately, and—wouldn’t you know?—it’s not because of his work as the CEO of Denver-based ICG Communications or his fundraising for the Democratic party.